


Fruit of Knowledge

by direpenguins



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Confrontations, F/F, Gen, I just want the Diamonds to beat each other up and then cry, description is figurative not literal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2018-12-18 17:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11879286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/direpenguins/pseuds/direpenguins
Summary: In which the notorious Rose Quartz sets out to prove once again, with Blue Zircon’s help, that only a Diamond can break a Diamond.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know if this scenario is plausible at all, and it will certainly become non-canon as soon as the show comes back from hiatus (even the previews have jossed it). But I just wanted an excuse to write some Big Diamond Drama.

For weeks there had been strange but persistent rumors among the lower Gems that the infamous rebel Rose Quartz was loose on Homeworld, evading capture and striking out from the shadows. It had become something of a running joke at court. Every time a console malfunctioned or someone dropped a sheaf of holofiche, it would be “Rose Quartz strikes again” or “Thanks a lot, Rose Quartz!” with accompanying nervous chuckles.

Zircon was one of the few who knew that the rumors were most likely true, and most definitely not funny.

It was even less funny when she returned to the antechamber after a particularly dismal session to find Rose Quartz sitting in the middle of the floor, wearing the same bizarre disguise she had assumed during her trial.

“Hi!” said Rose, waving. “Remember me?” Zircon threw a holostencil at her. It hit her right in her squishy pink face, making a satisfying _thwack_. Rose yelped and rubbed at it.

“Well,” said Zircon. “It looks like my optic enhancer isn’t malfunctioning. Thanks a lot, Rose Quartz.”

“Um, you’re welcome?”

“How did you even get in here?”

Rose gestured vaguely downward. “There’s all kinds of tunnels and things down below. They go all over.” She stood up from the floor and brushed herself off. “I mean, I haven’t been here the _whole_ time. I was mostly on Earth. But I come back to visit Lars whenever I can, through the portal in his head...”

“Don’t give me your rebel code speak. I don’t need to know that stuff.” Zircon glanced towards the door. No one else was likely to come in, but she couldn’t help being apprehensive. “You’ve got some real jagged edges, showing up here.”

“I really need your help.” Rose finally had the sense to look anxious. “You’re the only one I know on Homeworld who does this kind of thing. And I figured, since you did such a great job at the trial...”

Zircon gaped at her. “You mean when I stood in front of Blue and Yellow fracking _Diamond_ and accused them of the most heinous crime in Gem history??” She waved her arms over her head in a gesture that conveyed both the stature of the Diamonds and the enormity of her screw-up.

Rose beamed, evidently pleased by the thought of heinous crimes. “Exactly!”

“It’s a miracle I wasn’t shattered on the spot.” Zircon ran a hand over her face. “I must have been half-cracked already to go off like that.” The fiasco had certainly not helped her standing at court. The few cases that were assigned to her these days were were well below her abilities. From what she had heard, the prosecuting Zircon was even worse off; she was rarely seen in court at all.

“Please, I know it's a lot to ask,” Rose said, clasping her stubby little hands together. “But if there’s any way you could help me... I want to prove that Rose Quartz didn’t shatter Pink Diamond.”

Zircon squinted at her. “If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”

“Like you said before: one of the other Diamonds.”

“You witnessed it?”

“Well, no.” Rose rubbed the back of her head. “Like I said, I’m not really sure what happened. But you brought up a lot of good points at the trial. And if I can clear Mo... _my_ name, maybe the Diamonds will leave the Earth alone.”

“You’re talking about convincing the Diamonds... but it’s the Diamonds you want to accuse.” _That_ I _accused_ , she reminded herself. It was still hard to believe.

“Even if _they_ aren’t convinced... I still need to know the truth.”

Zircon sighed. “Look, Rose. Maybe things are different on that little backwater you've been hiding out on all these years; but here on Homeworld, the truth is what the Diamonds say it is. I haven't survived four thousand years in this court by forgetting that.” _Until recently_ , she thought.

Rose tapped her chin and frowned. “If the Diamonds control the truth,” she said slowly, “then... maybe we need to get _them_ to dig it up for us.”

Zircon did not like the sound of that. But Rose paid no attention to her incredulous glare, and plowed right on. “During the trial, Blue Diamond seemed like she really wanted to know what happened. If anyone is covering something up, it would have to be Yellow Diamond. And if Yellow _is_ covering something up, then Blue’s the only one who could stand up to her.”

“Well that’s not exactly... no. No.” Zircon clasped her forehead and started pacing back and forth. “This is insane. Diamonds don’t come into conflict with each other.”

“Yes they do. I’ve seen it.”

“Forget it. This isn’t part of my assignment. I don’t have to put my gem on the line for this.”

“Come on,” Rose pleaded. “Don’t you want to find out, too?”

Zircon stopped pacing and stared at the floor. In the weeks since she reformed after the Rose Quartz trial, she had thought often about what had led her to get so carried away as to point the finger—literally—at the Diamonds.

She had seen it so clearly in her mind. Not the answer itself, but the thread that would lead to it. In that brief moment, she had not cared about the difference between a Zircon and a Diamond. There wasn’t any difference. There was only truth to be discovered.

Zircon became aware that Rose was watching her expectantly.

“I suppose,” Zircon said, “that the first thing to do would be to track down the other witnesses.”

 

 

It could be difficult to know a Diamond’s exact location at any given moment. But Blue Diamond’s ship had been seen at dock, which meant she was on Homeworld rather than out in the colonies. And rumor had it that much of her time planetside was spent not in her own spires, but in the Arboretum. She was, quite likely, the only one who still visited there.

Since the place was all but deserted, it was relatively safe for Rose to tag along with Zircon (given, of course, that absolutely no part of this plan was safe at all).

“I’ll be here to help you escape, if anything goes wrong,” Rose promised, as the two of them climbed the windswept spiral stairs toward the pink dome. “You can come back to Earth with me, or maybe stay down in the underground with the Off-Colors! I’m sure they’d love to have you.”

Was this how the notorious instigator Rose Quartz convinced thousands of Gems to join her? With such tempting offers as a lifetime marooned on some bombed-out wasteland or sneaking through dark shafts? “Thanks, but... let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” was all Zircon said in reply.

They reached the top and entered the dome through one of the portways where Gems used to come in to maintain the trees, back when there was still a need for it. Once inside, Rose stood staring in awe for several moments, until Zircon gestured furiously at her, and she hid behind a parapet. Zircon tried to assure herself that the nefarious scofflaw Rose Quartz could surely manage to stay in the shadows and not be seen.

The Arboretum was one of the only places left on Homeworld to have been created by Pink Diamond. In the centuries following the war, the trees that died off were fossilized in crystal. The great tree in the center had lasted the longest. For some two thousand years, it had been the only organic life form on the planet. Zircon remembered the uproar in blue court when even that tree finally died. Blue Diamond had not taken it well.

Today, the huge tree was a crystallized fossil just like the rest. It loomed over all the others, the only one tall enough to give shade to a Diamond.

This was where Zircon found Blue Diamond, seated with her back against the pink-tinged trunk and her face turned upward toward the translucent canopy of branches. Zircon took a moment to study that profile. The Diamonds’ beauty could be truly striking when their attention wasn’t on you.

Then Blue Diamond turned and looked at her.

Zircon cringed and cleared her throat unnecessarily. “My Diamond,” she said, “My Radiant, Shining, um, Shimmering... S-splendid? Diamond...” She was already making a fool of herself. She had never been much good at the extravagant flattery that came so easily to that prosecuting Zircon.

Blue Diamond’s eyes narrowed. “You’re my Zircon from the Rose Quartz trial.”

“Yes, My Diamond.”

“Your _client_ is still at large, Zircon.”

Rumors notwithstanding, the fact that Rose Quartz had been brought to Homeworld to stand trial—much less the fact that she had escaped—was not meant to be public knowledge. It felt strange to hear her Diamond speak of it so directly. Zircon supposed that she was considered to be one of those in the know.

“M-my client... that is... I was _assigned_ to defend the rebel, My Diamond. As your Zircon, what could I do but carry out your order to the best of my ability?”

Blue Diamond sighed. “A skillful answer.” She turned back toward the trees. “You argued your case well, Zircon—exactly according to your function. That is why I did not take Yellow Diamond’s advice that you ought to be shattered for voicing such slanderous accusations against our authority.”

“Oh...” Zircon trembled all over. “My M-m-merciful, Gracious, Generous Diamond... please forgive my hastiness. I never intended to make such an accusation,” she swallowed, and added, “against _you_...”

Blue Diamond raised one flawless eyebrow.

“As I said, Zircon, you made your case well. But it would take far more than some clever arguments to convince me that Yellow... that she could have done as you insinuated.”

“Forgive me, My Diamond,” Zircon pressed on, pulling up the file of data she had collected, “but I only examined the possibilities based on what we know about...”

“What _we_ know?” The Diamond’s glare froze Zircon in place. “What do you imagine that _you_ know? _I_ know Yellow Diamond.”

“Y-yes, My Diamond...”

“I’ve known her since long before the first Zircon was even a glimmer of an idea.”

“Yes, My Diamond.”

“I think _I_ would know if she were capable of...” She cut off abruptly, turning her face away. After a pause, she spoke again, a faint tremor in her voice.

“That will be all. You may go.”

Not permission, but a command. Zircon did not need to be told twice. She crossed her arms in salute and spun around as quickly as was possible without being impudent. At least she had managed to get out with her gem intact.

“And leave _that_.”

Zircon blinked. “M-my Diamond?”

“That file,” said Blue Diamond, still not turning around. “You came to show it to me, did you not? Leave it here.”

The sudden presence of the Diamond’s Pearl at Zircon’s side startled her. Ordinarily a Pearl should be one of the least intimidating Gems around; but a Diamond’s Pearl was not so much a Gem as an extension of the Diamond’s will.

Zircon managed to keep her composure as she placed the holostencil into the Pearl’s outstretched hands.

 

 

Steven walked behind Zircon as they made their way up the staircase again to the big glass dome. It had been a couple of weeks since he had first come here with her, when she presented Blue Diamond with the information they had found. In that time, she told him, there had been no news or indication if Blue Diamond intended to act on it, or even if she’d read it at all.

It had been Zircon who’d suggested that they go back.

She was muttering to herself, maybe rehearsing what she planned to say. “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he told her. She did not look at him, but started muttering even louder. It was always the times in between when she seemed the most nervous. When she was actually face to face with the Diamonds and talking to them, she looked to Steven like she had nerves of steel.

“Look,” said Steven, “you’ve already done a lot to help me. If you don’t want to do this, I can go on by myself.”

Zircon snorted. “You’ve got some _seriously_ jagged edges, Rose.”

“Well I wouldn’t _talk_ to her. Just sort of... sneak around? Try to see if she’s gotten anything out of Yellow Diamond yet.” He had a vague, unconvincing image of himself breaking into Blue Diamond’s office and rifling through her desk drawers, or trying to guess the password on her computer. Did Diamonds even have offices?

Zircon shook her head. “Just forget it.” She chuckled awkwardly, still sweating. “The worst she would do to me is shatter me. I don’t even want to think about what she would do to you.”

Steven certainly didn’t love the idea of going anywhere near the Diamonds. But he was sick of being in the dark about all the things his mom had done in the past. If she was being framed for something she didn't even do, he had to know that too. And how could he be scared when Zircon was taking such a huge risk just to help him?

They went in through the same round passageway as before. As soon as they entered, Steven could feel that something was different. “I don't think she's here,” he whispered.

Zircon shushed him. But sure enough, Blue Diamond wasn't under the big tree she had been sitting under the last time. And none of the other trees came up higher than her head.

“Well, that’s that,” said Zircon hurriedly. “She’s not here. We’ll just have to adjourn for the day.”

As Steven glanced around to make sure Blue Diamond wasn’t crouching behind some tree like a predatory dinosaur, something flat and shiny caught his eye at the far end of the walkway. “Hey,” he said, “why did we have to walk here from that other warp pad when there’s a big one right here inside?”

“What?” Zircon looked where Steven was pointing. “Oh come on. Any Ruby could tell from the size of that pad that it’s made for the use of the Diamonds. They’re the only ones who can warp in here directly.”

The huge warp pad lit up.

Steven hastily ducked around a large fossilized trunk, dragging a flustered Zircon along. “Why am _I_ hiding?” she hissed at him. “Spying on Blue Diamond without her knowing would be worse than—”

Zircon’s jaw snapped shut as the towering figure resolved itself, and Yellow Diamond stepped down from the platform.

Her Pearl leapt lightly down after her. Yellow Diamond took several thunderous steps down the walkway, hands clasped stiffly behind her back, before sweeping her gaze over her surroundings. Her frown deepened into a grimace.

After a few moments the warp pad lit up again, and Blue Diamond materialized with her own Pearl. When her eyes fell on Yellow Diamond, her expression was sober and difficult to read. “Thank you for coming,” was all she said.

“What do you need?” said Yellow. “And did we have to meet _here_? I can’t believe you’ve kept all of this garbage around.”

Blue’s eyes remained fixed on Yellow. “The trees were _hers_.”

“They’re long dead. And they were eyesores even when they were alive.” She gave an aggravated sigh. “Never mind. Let’s not go into this again. What do you need?”

“The Gems from her retinue.”

“What?”

“Recently, some old records have been brought to my attention.” With a wave of her hand, Blue summoned a diamond-shaped panel in the air in front of her. “It seems that all of the Gems that were in her retinue that day ended up being assigned to the front lines through yellow channels, and they all failed to be evacuated before the Song.” She glanced at the display for a moment, brow furrowed, before turning back to Yellow. “One or two Rubies seem to have survived, but they weren’t on the roster; they crossed paths with her entourage by accident after misreading coordinates. Other than that, not one of the Gems who were there that day ever made it back from Earth.”

“A lot of Gems never made it back from Earth,” said Yellow blandly. “It was war. We deployed them as needed.”

“Agates, Quartzes, Rubies, certainly,” said Blue, “but Sapphires? Pink Sapphires are especially rare.”

Yellow gave her a withering look. “Sapphires are useful in war. You should know as well as anyone.” She crossed her arms. “Why don’t you get to the point, Blue. You didn’t call me here just to complain about misallocated resources from five thousand years ago.”

“I want to know why you eliminated all the witnesses apart from a few incompetent Rubies.”

Steven knew that the sensible thing to do would be for him and Zircon to get out quickly, before the Diamonds saw them. But the Diamonds and Pearls stood between the two of them and the exit; and even if they managed to sneak over to the warp pad unseen, the light and sound of it activating was sure to draw attention. They might be spotted before warping away. Steven was already on Homeworld’s most wanted list; but if anyone knew Zircon had been there, she could be in huge trouble.

Steven looked at Zircon beside him. She was watching the Diamonds with rapt attention.

“Witnesses.” Yellow Diamond scoffed. “You’re still stuck on that farce of a trial.”

Blue Diamond said nothing.

“I _told_ you it was a mistake. All it accomplished was to give Rose Quartz a chance to escape. And for what? So some Zircons could waste our time going over trivial details nobody cares about?”

“ _I_ care about the details!”

“Well that’s your problem!” Yellow’s voice rattled the glass panes overhead. “You spend all this time endlessly thinking and thinking about questions that serve no purpose!” She threw up her hands. “How was she shattered? How many Agates in her entourage? How many Amethysts? Where was the Pearl standing? Did Rose approach from the north or south? Did she use a sword, or just _jump-kick_ her to pieces?”

Blue visibly quailed at that last part, and even Yellow seemed to cringe.

“None of that matters,” Yellow went on, rubbing her temples. “Knowing won't alter the outcome. It won't bring her back, and it won't make you feel better. _Nothing_ makes you feel better. Not collecting humans, not...” She cut herself off with an irritated noise.

“Yellow.” Blue’s hands were squeezed into fists. “Just... just tell me. I need to know.”

“Tell you _what?_ ” Yellow snapped.

“Whatever it is you're hiding.”

A muscle twitched in Yellow Diamond’s jaw. She turned on her heel and strode in the direction of the warp pad.

“If there’s nothing you actually need from me,” she said, dripping acid, “I have work to get back to. I have to step up robonoid production and perhaps start recalling troops from the outer worlds so we can flush Rose Quartz out before she manages to get off-planet. On top of that, the carboplasts on Serwex-8 are behind schedule, the warp drought on Serwex-9 has stranded the Bismuths, a second red spot has formed on Caryot-7, Ipsil-4’s partially completed spires have to be scrapped due to improper terraforming, and Borp-6 is having a mana blight, _again_.” She scowled at Blue, who had stepped into her path.

Blue Diamond laid one hand lightly on Yellow’s chest, below her shoulder. It looked almost affectionate; but when she spoke, her voice was harder than ever. “I do need something from you,” she said. “A straight answer. I’m not letting you leave here until you give it me.”

Yellow’s eyes narrowed. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Steven was distracted by a movement at the corner of his eye. He saw the blue Pearl with the gauzy skirt grab the pointy-haired yellow Pearl by the arm and haul her behind a solid metal parapet.

Some flash of gut instinct made him summon his shield; but before it was even solid in his hands, a massive wave of energy slammed into the trees and knocked him to his feet, sending him rolling.

He yelled for Zircon; any concern he had about remaining undetected had been blown away in the chaos around them. Not that it made any difference. He couldn’t even hear himself over the howling, shrieking wind and crashing stone. Intermittent flashes of blinding light made it difficult to see.

He spotted Zircon hunkered down behind a large fallen tree trunk just before a stray bolt of yellow lightning arced down and struck her, poofing her instantly. Silently apologizing for ever getting her involved in this, he crawled over and grabbed her gem.

When he raised his head, he caught sight of the two Pearls pressed up against the metal parapet, holding on for dear life. He dashed over and threw up his bubble shield around the three of them, moments before a gigantic stone trunk came sailing through the air and crashing down.

 

 

When Steven opened his eyes, he thought for a moment that the brightness was still the glow of the Diamonds. Then he realized that the glass dome and the translucent canopy of trees were all gone; their broken remains littered the floor in huge chunks all around. The cold white daylight of Homeworld shone down on them, unfiltered.

When he turned around, the two Pearls were gaping at him.

The yellow one was clutching her gem and making strangled noises of shock and outrage. _Uh-oh._ He put a finger up in front of his lips, pleading with them not to give him away, but he had no idea if they would be at all sympathetic.

Yellow Pearl made a move to stand up, but Blue Pearl pulled her back and motioned her to keep her head down. She didn’t seem to think the danger had passed.

Steven peered over the parapet. Both Diamonds were slumped to the ground; but Yellow was slowly getting to her feet. She was shedding flakes of ice, and the points of her hair were askew.

With some effort, she staggered past the prone Blue, toward the warp pad. Placing one foot on it, she seemed to hesitate for a moment.

Then Blue Diamond gave a faint sob, and Yellow came hurrying back to her.

“What is it?” Blue whimpered, as Yellow hauled her to her feet and held her steady. Her long whitish hair had fallen over her eyes. “What can’t you tell me? You’re frightening me.”

“Stop this,” Yellow hissed. She lifted one hand to smooth the hair back from Blue’s face.

Steven felt the wave of blue light before he saw it. It was many times worse than the one during the trial—a crushing sadness that fell so heavily he could barely remain upright. It seemed to squeeze the air from his lungs and the tears from his eyes. He heard the Pearls sobbing. Blinking furiously to clear his vision, he watched Yellow Diamond reel backwards like she’d been kicked in the chest.

“TELL ME,” Blue wailed.

Yellow was sliding to the floor. She thrust her head down between her shoulders and hid her face in her hands. “Blue,” she said, “please, I...”

“JUST _TELL ME!_ ”

“All right, all right,” Yellow choked. “I was there. I did it.”

Blue Diamond let out a soft “oh,” and the blue light dissipated as quickly as it had fallen. Her knees hit the floor beside where Yellow lay crumpled, face down.

“I stopped her palanquin. I sent her retinue away,” Yellow Diamond went on, making no move to sit up or lift her head. “I was the one who served her up to Rose Quartz for the taking.”

She lay with her face in the crook of her elbow. With one hand she clutched at the back of her head, as if she could reach in and yank her thoughts out like weeds. “When rebellion broke out I thought, at least now she’ll have to take responsibility. Stop playing around with her ridiculous zoo and her useless gardens and show her wayward Gems what a Diamond is made of. Instead she just kept slinking around from one base to the next, while you and I scrambled to root out out the rebels for her. Even White was helping her out with basic operations. _White_. When has White ever had to step in like that for either of us?

“I wanted to tell her to pull herself together. To strike decisively and wipe out any trace of rebellion before she lost even more control. But she was ignoring my calls. You remember how hard it was to get a hold of her back then.

“I got a tip from White about where and when she would be traveling from one stronghold to another. I caught up to her with my palanquin. I had the entire entourage remove themselves just far enough away that they wouldn’t hear me scolding her.”

Yellow lay her forehead against the floor and crossed her arms over her head. She was shaking convulsively. There was no sound, but it looked to Steven as if she might be laughing. Blue sat by and watched in silence. Half a minute passed like that before Yellow finally gasped out the punchline.

“I didn’t want to damage her _authority_...”

She exhaled tremulously. “Ah... she could be so stubborn. Even more than you. ‘Don’t _lecture_ me, Yellow.’ Well this time she wouldn’t even talk to me. Just glared at me from inside the palanquin.

“I was sick of it. I told her she was a disgrace of a Diamond. I told her it would serve her right to have her only colony snatched out from under her by some upstart Quartz. I told her... I told her a lot of things.

“And then I left. I didn’t want to listen to whatever retort she came up with. I left her there, just like that.

“They said she stepped out of the palanquin when Rose Quartz came knocking. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes after I was there, if the Agates had not yet reformed their perimeter. Maybe she thought that it was me, that I had come back for another round. I don’t know.” Yellow pulled both elbows and knees in beneath her. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to think about it. If I don't think about it, I can almost forget that she...”

The points of her hair dragged against the floor. “She...” Her voice sounded like something was being squeezed out of her. “She would be alive if it hadn’t been for me.”

A heavy, numb feeling had coiled in Steven’s stomach and weighed down his limbs. There didn’t seem to be much point in sticking around; he doubted there would be anything more worth hearing.

He glanced over at where the Pearls crouched. Yellow Pearl met his eyes with a fierce glare, but seemed in no rush to step away from their hiding place or call the attention of the Diamonds.

Cradling Zircon’s gem carefully, Steven picked his way around the shards of glass and stepped over the line of flattened metal and broken crystal that was all that was left of the dome wall.

He cast one last look at the Diamonds, still on the floor—Blue on her knees, Yellow face down and sobbing. He saw Blue Diamond tilt her head back to stare at the emptiness above, her expression dazed, frozen. She could have been a statue apart from her left hand, which twitched once and rose to lay itself, almost absentmindedly, on the flat of Yellow’s back.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue Diamond wants to reach out to Yellow Diamond, but Yellow is being a big butthead as usual. Steven thinks about stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t believe this hiatus has been long enough for my slow ass to finish this fic before the canon jossed it.

Blue stood just inside the entrance to Yellow’s personal control room, still as a monument. In the time she had been standing there, Yellow had made several calls, speaking to managers, commanders, and technicians, but never saying a word to Blue or looking in her direction. The only illumination in the room came from the hundreds of acid-bright display panels, stretching vertically up from the floor by Yellow’s feet to the ceiling far overhead. Seated in front of that towering column, bathed in that harsh light, Yellow herself looked small and washed-out to Blue’s eyes.

They had not spoken or had any contact since that day at the Arboretum.

After the war, grief had become the center of Blue’s being, more solid and real to her than her own gem. She hoarded this grief jealously; she could spend ages turning it over and over in her mind, studying its every painful facet, its clarity that did not dim with age.

The facet that Blue had absorbed herself in contemplating since her confrontation with Yellow was the image of Pink stepping out of her palanquin in front of Rose Quartz’s waiting sword. It was an image that had haunted her imagination for years. She thought of how much she had longed to banish the shadows around that image, to see it clearly and understand how this could have happened. And all along, Yellow had been lurking in those shadows.

These past weeks, Blue had gone over each and every conversation they’d had for the past five thousand years—every point at which Yellow could have told her the truth and did not. Examining another facet, she saw also all the times that Yellow had been with her—when she had seethed at Yellow for trying to solve her pain like a warp shortage or an underperforming carboplast, even as she loved Yellow for being so determined to comfort her. All those times, Yellow had been hiding the shape of her own pain.

Returning again to the image of Pink, the palanquin, the sword, she thought of Yellow being haunted by the same image, carrying the guilt in her gem all these years. This was what ultimately brought her to Yellow’s control room.

Except, as it turned out, there was no need to be concerned about Yellow sitting in the dark brooding in anguish, because Yellow could always find other things to occupy her time. She had somehow managed to give herself more work than ever. Blue learned that in the weeks since they last saw each other, Yellow had initiated overhauls of the entire warp infrastructure of four different systems and the mana ecosystem on five colonies. She had also signed off on the use of a storm geode on Caryot-7, gone through third and fourth design iterations of proposed new lines of disruptors before sending all of them back for complete revision, assigned a team of Orthoclases to deliver hourly reports on the effects of time distortion, and reinforced the forward shielding on her ship.

When Blue had walled herself up in Pink’s Zoo after the war, it was centuries before she even noticed that Gems had stopped trying to contact her with concerns or to send her anything beyond the standard periodic status reports which piled up unread. Yellow had taken over the routine administration of her colonies without even notifying her. At the time, Blue remembered feeling torn between resentment—that Yellow would usurp her authority without telling her—and gratefulness, that Yellow would lift that burden from her without having to be asked. Now Blue wondered if Yellow had not simply been walling herself up in her own way, using work to lock her grief out instead of in.

Yellow was now on the line with a high-ranking technician on Borp-6. “You said that replacing all of the filters with type elevens would solve the problem. It obviously has not. You have until I call back in twenty minutes to think of how to convince me not to replace _you_ with a different type.”

She swiped the sputtering technician away, ending the call. “Why do we even _have_ a Borp-6?” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We should have stopped at Borp-5.”

A rhetorical question, addressed to the air rather than to anyone in particular, and yet it was the closest Yellow had come so far to acknowledging her presence. Blue took it as an opening.

“Do you really plan to never look at me again?”

Yellow heaved a sigh. “What do you want, Blue? I’m busy.” The Yellow who had curled up on the floor of Pink’s ruined Arboretum and wept piteously was gone, replaced once again with the brusque, rigid, aloof Yellow.

“Always so _busy_ ,” said Blue. “So _many_ little matters to see to. What would any of us ever do without you stepping in to take care of things?”

Yellow seemed taken aback by the venom in Blue’s tone; her hands stilled, and she lowered them to her lap, but did not turn around. Blue, too, was surprised to hear herself. This was not what she had come for; and yet the sight of Yellow carrying on as usual made her want to lash out.

She took a few steps forward, standing in the center of the floor. “What about White? Does she know?”

“She knew from the beginning,” Yellow said. “She was the one who told me how to find Pink, remember? I begged her not to tell you what had happened.”

“ _You_ should have told me.”

Yellow laughed, a short, sharp bark, and leaned back in her chair. “Told you what? That Pink getting smashed into so many little pieces that they couldn’t even pick them up afterwards, was my fault? That every tear you’ve cried these thousands of years, that you going around in a daze like your gem had been hollowed out from the inside, was all my fault? Would you have been happy to know that?”

“Don’t try to act like your keeping this from me was for my benefit.”

“...No,” said Yellow, after a beat. “Of course not. It was for _my_ benefit.” She shrugged and resumed working on her column of screens. “And now it’s over.”

Something about the way she said it, the finality of it, gnawed at Blue. “What’s over?”

“Don’t pretend you’re going to forgive me for this, Blue. You may think you can, but you can’t. I know you.”

The sheer arrogance was dizzying. It was so, so typical of Yellow to unilaterally declare herself unforgivable, rather than try to seek forgiveness. “Don’t decide on your own what I’m capable of forgiving,” Blue said coldly.

“You can’t forget anything,” said Yellow, tapping her screens. “You’ve spent thousands of years thinking of _her_ constantly. How will you ever do that now without remembering that I’m the reason she’s gone?”

Blue raised her eyes to the ceiling. She could not deny that she had wondered the same thing. It frightened her, the possibility that she might actually not be able to forgive Yellow.

Pink would already have laughed this off as yet another case of Yellow’s legendary stubbornness. Pink could never stay angry or hold on to grudges or resentments. It was this trait that made her so easy to love that had ultimately destroyed her. If Pink had stepped out of her palanquin that day expecting to see Yellow, it would surely have been to embrace her and make amends for their quarrel.

At that thought, Blue had to choke back a fresh wave of pain. “It was Rose Quartz who shattered her,” she said, struggling to keep her voice from shaking.

“Don’t worry; I haven’t forgotten that either.” Yellow gestured with a finger and brought up a huge set of displays, tinted orange and scarlet. They showed the blockade on ship departures, tripled security monitoring on galaxy warps, massive increases on robonoid deployment, and detailed scans of miles and miles of underground tunnels. “She’ll get what she deserves—she and that miserable planet.”

She swatted the displays away and went back to her normal screens, jabbing at them with great force. “If the Cluster is delayed much longer, we may have to consider the possibility that those dregs of Rose’s army have managed to tamper with it somehow. I’ll deal with that if it comes up. We’ll be rid of that planet if I have to grind it to dust with my own hands.”

Blue stared at the jagged line of Yellow’s shoulders. “Will that make up for what happened to Pink?”

“No. But it’s all that I can do. No matter how much we might wish that it could be otherwise—that we could bring her back, or that I could trade places with her—”

“ _Shut up_ ,” said Blue savagely. “How could you say that—how _dare_ you—”

Her voice finally broke. She balled up her fists against her eyes and clenched her jaw. For a while the only sound in the room was her stifled sobs; the tapping had ceased.

After a minute, Yellow spoke. “My point is that wanting to do something and being capable of it are two different things. You can’t forget about what I did, any more than I can bring Pink back. Something that’s broken will always be broken.” Yet again, she continued her endless tapping and swiping. “Better to make a clean break of it.”

“You’re _pathetic_. You would rather spend eternity browbeating Rutiles and Peridots than look me in the eye for one moment—”

Yellow’s fists slammed into the arms of her chair. “Think whatever you want,” she snarled. “Just get out and let me work.”

The outline of Yellow’s silhouette was starting to waver and blur in Blue’s vision. At this rate, she would pass beyond Blue’s reach.

Blue came up to the edge of the low steps leading up to Yellow’s platform. “That day at the Sky Arena,” she said, “when the rebels attacked, and my favorite Sapphire disgraced herself with some Ruby guard.” She took one step upward. “I think about it often. I came so close to catching Rose Quartz and snuffing out the rebellion right then and there. If I had been just a little less cautious... If I had summoned more soldiers from Homeworld, as you would have done, instead of a Sapphire...”

“Should we have a contest over who is more to blame?” Yellow affected a bored tone. “I was with Pink literally _minutes_ before she was shattered. I left her wide open.”

Blue took another step. “In those days when she was in hiding, I often thought of doing what you did. Throwing caution to the wind and just tracking her down. I wanted so badly to see her, to talk with her.”

“But you didn’t,” said Yellow.

“No. But I could have. It could so easily have been me who ended up leaving her open to attack.”

“But it _wasn’t_. You’re really reaching, Blue. You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself, not me.”

Stepping onto the raised floor, Blue grabbed the chair, and it swiveled around on its gravity pivot. Yellow froze in her seat. Slowly, she lowered the hand she had been using to work her displays. She continued to stare straight ahead, not raising her eyes.

Blue found herself averting her gaze as well. “That day you suddenly showed up at the Zoo,” she said. “You surprised me. You _never_ go there. The Arboretum, the Earth... since the war, you’ve avoided any place that had anything to do with her.”

Yellow crossed her arms and remained silent.

“It must have hurt you, to go there, to be surrounded by her things. Every reminder of her existence just reminded you of your guilt.” Blue leaned on the chair’s arm for support, resting the heel of one hand on it. “But you went anyway. Because I was there. The only time you ever set foot in her places was when you came to find me.”

The line of Yellow’s body began to tilt, ever so slightly, until she was leaning toward Blue, her head bent low over the hand that rested on the chair arm.

Blue hadn’t been sure, until that moment, how much tenderness she would be able to summon. Her hand turned upward and cupped Yellow’s wet face.

Yellow crumpled into Blue, and Blue wrapped her arms around her.

“I’m—” Yellow faltered, as if her form wasn’t big enough to contain what she was trying to express. “— _sorry_.”

“I know you are,” Blue murmured. Her own tears soaked Yellow’s shoulders, knowing that Yellow was not exactly wrong to think she could never be forgiven. After all, the one she really needed to forgive her was lost to them forever.

 

 

Steven sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the temple’s hand and watched the first evening stars emerge. Homeworld’s star was not visible, and even if it had been, he wasn’t sure he could have identified it, though Garnet and Pearl had pointed it out to him before.

He fixed his eyes on one patch of sky and pretended that he was looking at Homeworld, across the vast distance of space. Lars was still there somewhere, with his new friends. Zircon was there as well, still doing her thing.

When she had reformed again after getting poofed at the Arboretum, Steven told her what he had heard from the Diamonds, as best he could. He owed her that much. He offered again to bring her back to Earth, or to take her to stay with the Off-Colors. She turned him down.

“Good luck, Rose,” she’d said. “You’re going to need it.”

“Yeah... you too. And, um... you can just call me Steven.”

Zircon had squinted at him. “Isn’t it a little too late to bother with code names?” She sighed. “Fine, ‘Steven.’ I hope I never see you in court.” She had smiled a little then. He smiled a little to recall it now.

There was a brief burst of light and sound from the warp behind him. “Steven?”

“Hi, Pearl.”

“I came to check on you. I thought maybe the dryer was giving you trouble again.”

“Oh jeez!” He cast a guilty look at the silent dryer and the empty basket next to it. “I’m sorry. It was still going when I came up here so I thought I’d wait for it to finish. I must’ve lost track of time.”

He thought she might fuss over the clothes getting wrinkled, but she just looked at him. “What were you doing?”

“Um... thinking, I guess.”

“Ah.” An uncertain smile hovered over her face. “Is that... good or bad?” Steven didn’t have an answer to that.

Pearl was still hovering. Steven shrugged. “I guess... after all that stuff with the Diamonds came up at the trial, it seemed like maybe Mom was being hated and blamed by all these Gems for something she didn’t even do.” _Kind of like me_ , he thought. “I figured, maybe if I could clear her name... maybe, they wouldn’t hate her and the Earth so much. But now it looks like she did it after all.”

At the corner of his eye, Steven saw Pearl clasping her hands together. She came and perched beside him.

“Steven,” she said, “if they hate the Earth, it’s not your fault. As for your mother...”

She paused just long enough that Steven tensed in anticipation. “Yeah?”

“Well... there were things much more important to her than what Gems thought of her.”

He slumped. “Yeah, I know.”

Before, he’d been frustrated with the Gems for not telling him things. He’d figured that they didn’t want to upset him, or that they didn’t want him to think badly of his mom. Maybe he’d got it wrong, though. Probably, Pearl herself didn’t want to think about everything that happened.

They sat and watched the evening deepen. Somebody turned on the lights in the house below. “Hey... Pearl?”

“Yes?” It had gotten too dark to see the look on her face.

“Can you tell me again which one is Homeworld? I kinda forgot.”

She pointed it out to him, and he filed the knowledge away for the future.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I definitely don’t think Pearl did it (my own theories are kind of convoluted); but as I mentioned, I wrote this to be ambiguous enough that it meshes with various theories about what happened to Pink Diamond.
> 
> I feel like they should have brought up White Diamond more, but I couldn't figure out a way to work her in.
> 
> If you actually read all this, thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> While I don’t know if anything like this scenario could pan out in canon, I do think that if Yellow is meant to be a red herring in a murder mystery, then anything she might be hiding (assuming she is, in fact, hiding anything) would probably not point directly to the real killer. I wrote this with my own weird conspiracy theories in mind; but I think it slots in well enough with various popular theories, such as that White Diamond did it, that Pearl did it, that Rose did it but had inside help, etc.
> 
> I see Blue and Yellow as being equal in power, so I think they both equally got the crap beaten out of them. The difference is in their reactions.  
> Blue: This pain is nothing... compared to the pain in... my soul... *lies down and cries*  
> Yellow: I’M FINE! I’LL JUST WALK IT OFF!!!!!!!!!


End file.
